Hopelessly Human
by Vampyvii
Summary: The aftermath of Season 3's Finale - Hell, its horrors, and Sam: his personal strife - and Everyone Else, naturally... Still part of my first ever fanfic um, like, ever.... Playing in Kripke's sandbox, as you see, but I stake no claims therein whatsoever.
1. Chapter 1 What Separates Us

_All is rhythm, all is unity_

_I am laughing, as is meant to be-_

_Just amusing, I am using the_

_Word has given, making harmony_

_Moving slowly, dancing aimlessly_

_Endless circle, turning fearlessly_

_Resurrected, falling down again_

_Introspective, I'm just stating my views-_

_Now you can choose- What do you feel?_

_Is it for real this time?_

"_Hopelessly Human" by Kansas_

His sense of self is all but ripped away in this charged and void place where neither time nor matter has a bearing. The fire that feeds Hell reigns elusive and he can't even begin to sense it. Some cognizant entity, however: some puppet master with a magician's hand, is behind the AC and the DC that encompasses the fierce forces binding him, stretching far and wide- charging wild the furthest expanse of a space where no earth, no sky can be seen… piercing him with heavy hooks and chains, holding him so he cannot move. He knows it, can feel it. This is and always has been a colorless place, and here there's nobody else. He screams his entreaties to the only human lifeline he has left, but all he gets is the grey and the black and the ominous flickering of light- and, of course, the pain. There is pain here like no pain ever felt before.

Lightening sparks intermittently and the flesh Dean's somehow still attached to twitches in response. This, he knows, is what separates us from our bodies: that which drowns our minds in the sea of lost souls. This, a vast chasm of human suffering, is the end of existence. He fights against even noting all this, the core of his body having long since learned to battle such base ideas of annihilation. Yes, there's fight in these weary sinews still, he tells himself, over and over- even as he acknowledges he can't stop the flow of everything away from him: the blood spilling from his body, the tears streaming from his eyes, the screams ripping from his throat...

Here there are daunting wonders: terrifying heights, dreadful depths, fearful expanses and stifling enclosures. The air in this place smells of human hopelessness: the blood, sweat and tears epitomizing desperation and despair throughout the millenniums. He knows that the fear he feels now is indeed the fear that holds the universe. Knows there is nowhere else now.

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Sam's hold on what's real comes in gasps and shivers, but proves relentless: poised implacable as he is atop some thought process that alludes to victory in the battle, he knows down deep it all was fleeting. Around him are the echoes of all that's just transpired, and he feels himself sinking towards the depths of terrorization and loss and despair. The ominous earth-shattering air lies just beyond his perception, yet somehow still abounds. He knows, somehow- however ironic- that he has a key somewhere to some locked door, and that he is here in the world and in the place that he is: the quaint Midwestern suburban home to which they've all so long since been lead. It's a different dining room, yes, than that in which the little old man had died, but all is formal here too.

Reality is soft tones, oak wood, damask linens, and quaintly trimmed, olive-colored walls splattered with blood. He tries to hold on to some semblance of order in his thoughts, repeating the mantra just moments ago made pitiful by the various sounds out his lips imperfectly forming the name "Dean." They're whimpering tones, of course. They're flat noted details of grief fused with sharp fractured hymns of despair. It's just after midnight, Sam notes, through a crimson haze of horror. It marks the end of his first quarter century of life. Now, starting the second, he finds an existence in a strangely quiet place, a world filled with dreadfulness. Trying hard for some synchronicity in his heartbeat and his breathing, he searches for a focus for his rage.

The dozens of random sparks that jolt through his brain do nothing to bring him resolution, or absolution. He's only left with his mad thought processes, the blonde girl who was lately Lillith and once was Ruby lightly twitching as her life leaves, and his broken and sobbing self holding his brother's lifeless body in his shaking arms.

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	2. Chapter 2 This Whole Wicked World

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Chapter 2- _This Whole Wicked World_

Hell remains for merciless moments, relentless days and inexorable ages the widely torn, depthless void that's become Dean's whole world. Moribound in some vortex outside time, fraught in neverending gloom. Nothing but the resonance of lost souls and the echoes of his own screams ever answers back to him. The deep and endless pain swathing his body not only persists, but imperceptibly intensifies with each stretching moment. There's a terrifying hole in the universe, and this is where he's bound. He knows that time can be of no consequence in such a ceaseless place; but time is all there is here now- tenacious time, enduring time. Time that will not be thwarted, will not withdraw.

Dean's instincts call for retaliation, but his mind tells him there's no reprisal to be had against the plight he faces. Nothing he can do will fight the nameless and imperceptible overseer of his suffering. He seeks a peace, his mother's sleep, but oblivion or any other kind unconsciousness eludes him. He's suspended in this tortuous place- in Hell, and all that Hell encompasses.

Somewhere deep in the hazy recesses of his mind, a stark denial of his doom rages onward despite the screeching vacuous force that holds the air he breathes- a force faceless, blank and evil. Yet the denial still remains, for Dean had once been a human: a random and indeed hopeless, flesh and blood denizen of the world. He'd been born and had an infancy, and a childhood and a life. He'd had a family that had at least cared enough to raise him to a man. He'd had a brother, too – someone put into his care early on. His mind struggles to keep hold of these, the articles of memory he knows are being ripped from him. He dies a thousand more deaths for just mere glimpses of his past…

_Daddy's hands are black with dirt and grime as he rolls out from under our big black car parked out on the driveway. He winks at me as he picks himself up off the flat wooden skateboard that he rides on whenever he's underneath the car. _

_"I think that's about all she needs right now, Dean, to make her purr like a kitten when we take her out this evening," he says._

_"She's not a kitten, Daddy!"_

_His laughter is gruff as he wipes his hands on a rag and then lightly ruffles my hair. "I know, son – but in top form this baby will always sound like she's purring…"_

_"Dear God, John!" my mother calls from the front porch swing, where she's rocking baby Sammy, "You already have him referring to that car as a girl?!"_

_Daddy laughs at her; then I run to her. "She IS a girl, mamma," I tell her. "And Daddy said she's the prettiest girl ever, except for you!"_

_My mom smiles the same special smile that she always saves for me, "You're quite the little mechanic then, aren't you, my little man-" I nod and step up beside her, reach for her hair, which is the softest, most wonderful thing in the world to ever touch, and I wrap my fingers in through it. I lean my head towards her chin as she kisses the top of my head, then I reach my other hand out to touch the peachy soft edge of Sammy's pink cheek. Sammy in turn looks back at me._

_A cloud all of a sudden rides over the sun, darkening the air. I glance up and see a storm coming fast. Out the corner of my eye I see Daddy moving toward us. When I look back at my baby brother, he gives me a slow, strange smile as his eyes change._

_The hand I have tangled up in my mother's hair is abruptly seared through with pain, and I scream and fall back in horror at the sight before me: Her hair is in flames, and she is on fire- her whole face aghast in soundless screaming fraught with a torment that nothing here on earth or no one in the universe can save her from- _

"No! No No No No! Never Happened- Never Happened!" Dean cries breathless into the phosphorous air, "Never Happened At All! No! Never..." He repeats like a spasmodic chant, over and over until his gasps and bawling shrieks of denial can no longer support nor bear his voice.

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Bobby peaks out from the corner of the back porch and sees nobody, demon or otherwise. He hopes this is a good sign. He'd checked his watch at five 'til midnight, and since then had been covertly making his way from inside a house across the street to the house where Lillith and the boys were. The intensity of the watch the veritable swarm of demons had been making outside the barrier of sprinkled holy water seems to have lessened significantly since the clock struck twelve. This should be construed as a good sign as well, but somehow Bobby gets the feeling it bodes nothing but ill tidings.

He enters the house through the back door, quietly pacing his way through the quaintly laid out abode. Beyond a door just off the kitchen, he hears rustling and some whispering, whimpering voices. He opens it to find it leading to the basement. At the foot of the stairs he spots a man and woman, as well as the little girl Dean had earlier identified as possessed by Lillith. They look at him warily, six eyes popped open wide in his direction. He holds his hands up in supplication.

"It's okay," he tells them, "just be quiet and stay down here until I come back an' tell ya it's okay to come up." The woman nods at his reassuring smile, and he proceeds to head out, shutting the door behind him. Near the front entrance of the house he spots the body of an old woman, an obvious victim of the demon. Around the corner he finds an old man slumped at the head of the dining room table- another victim, he thinks sadly. He quietly makes his way further into the heart of the home.

He scopes his way through the first floor passages, and soon hears the sound of quiet sobbing coming out from the open French doors at the end of a hallway. He rushes to it, and suddenly his sense of foreboding dawns true as he gazes at the scene before him…

At the foot of a table, in the midst of several haphazard puddles of blood, are the only two people in this whole wicked world Bobby's ever come to love as his own children. For a few moments he cannot even move- can barely breathe in air so thick with grief. He forces a deep sigh through his non-compliant lungs, though, knowing his trembling hand must somehow find a way to Sam's shoulder, knowing he must figure out a way through the coming hours despite his breaking heart.

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	3. Chapter 3 Face To The Ground

**I'm trudging along here, so I apologize. I've been moving, uprooting all my stuff, my home. I'm also working full-time. Things should calm down enough to write within the coming weeks, but for now I'm going to be slow in getting my chapters posted. **

**I do hope y'all like this one -!**

Eastward, morning light harkens its gradual and uncompromising traverse over the landscape. Sam periodically squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to summon moisture or any other such tool he might find stocked in his vast arsenal of powers to keep them wide open. He hasn't slept for days.

A crisp wind whips through the hair on the left side of his face as he flies along the road. He notes the reddening sky, promising all the pink and purplish hues that no doubt must follow. Patches of trees and fields strewn with haphazard homesteads jot about the peripheries of his vision as he rolls speedily by. Just past a clearing in the patchwork landscape, he spots a coyote make hasty retreat from the imminent approach of the Impala, leaving behind a small animal lying mangled on the soft shoulder of the highway. The morning glow accentuates some soft brown fur congealed with dark red.

Little bit, lost now- its face to the ground, its colors wrapped round, Sam muses madly. For he's surely losing it, all the remnants of sanity in his corporeal quarter century now slipping away in the aftermath of emotion so bright red with anger and so sickeningly yellow with fear that he can barely even hang on to the power to breathe.

Yes color indeed links and defines life's passions, he tries to ruminate: the green of the earth's carpet, the phasing indigo of the sky, even rainbows, heh- and also vivid organic colors like the crimson skin of an apple and the lifeforce red of blood; earth tones too, such as the tawny coat on a cat, the sandy highlights in a person's hair, or the jade of long-lashed eyes; all kinds and colors of people adorned in all kinds and colors of fabric: rich jeweled tones, softer mauves and sepias, their patterns mixed with stark blacks, grays and whites to give them definition.

There's an existential and colorless aspect about the dawning of this day, though: a gleaning mark of memory robbing all prism and motion from the highway here before him.

_The Hounds of Hell were let loose right in front of my eyes, but I could not see them. _

_Dean could, though. The moment those doors opened, the look of horror in his eyes was like something I'd never seen before. He was so scared – more terrified than I'd ever before known him to be._

_So scared, so scared… So intensely fucking scared…_

Sam feels his skin prickle. He wonders where color had ever been all along, and why he can even think of it now. For is this not the same endless grey ribbon that he's been following since before he can remember?

Behind him a quarter of a mile back, Bobby follows in an old grey Chevelle. His dear old friend and fellow hunter had been tiptoeing around Sam's psyche like a wary sentinel ever since he'd entered that blood-spattered room some five or so hours previous - phantom ages ago- offering quietly empathetic words and warm comforting touches.

He and Bobby had carefully wrapped Dean in a worn downy patchwork quilt they'd secured from a closet in the house in New Harmony- Dean, who now lies snuggled within it on the back seat, his eyes having since been closed and the blood having since been washed from his body, now oblivious of the earthly form that conjures all illusion of peaceful slumber.

He lies partway on his side, facing Sam, though his chin, mouth and the tip of his nose are obscured within the soft fabric shrouding him. All that Sam sees of his brother are two closed immovable eyes beneath short soft tufts of light brown hair. Sam gazes at him in the rearview mirror and notes that the litany of comfort phrases, from "He's in a better place now" to "At least he's no longer suffering" and even "His spirit will always be with you," do not apply to Dean.

Eyes back on the road, Sam glares out at the rapidly dawning day. Traffic is sparse, if non-existent but for Bobby's car and the Impala. Gusty breezes make the trees and grass sway like so many flamenco dancers- brisk, vibrant and alive. A swarm of sparrows flies into the wind overhead, their formation in the shape of a spearhead, aimed sure and true towards some distant destination. Here, for certain, breathes a world without Dean.

Sam tastes copper, and suddenly realizes he's been biting on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. _Let it bleed,_ he thinks to himself, _let all this and everything else just flow away from me._ The constant turning of his thoughts is just too powerful to master, after all. He wants to come apart, leave all testimonies and aberrations behind. But the likelihood of any end to this twisted new reality stands vacant, unreachable and moot.

There's an unrelenting chill in the air, and Sam finds he cannot stop shaking. Ahead he sees a Rest Stop and so signals and slows his way into it. Bobby follows.

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The past couple days or so have been freakishly surreal to say the least, as far as Bobby is concerned. So now, with a new day cracking and their little battle-weary caravan unabashedly heading west, a Rest Stop, of all places, becomes their desired destination. Bobby pulls up beside the jet black Impala, as shadows partially cloak the tree-lined landscape hovering over the rectangular structure surely equipped with all the restrooms, vending machines and picnic tables acclaimed by such retreats

"Yeah, we need coffee," Bobby says to Sam as he rounds front to the driver's side, where Sam still sits, leaning forward and gripping the wheel like it's a lifeline, his knuckles white, his face drawn tense. Bobby realizes he's always had a talent for verbalizing the obvious, as if to confirm what inevitably must be. Yet he doesn't care, 'cause sometimes the obvious just needs to be stated. Affirmative situations, after all, must always be confirmed by what's real.

"We should reach it by mid-morning today," he tells the apparently still shell-shocked boy, "and we'll make do with the rest of what we need when we get there." He stretches his hand out to touch with his fingertips Sam's wind-blown hair.

Sam's eyes flick sideways for the fraction of a second. Bobby steps backward a few inches, then glances forward – his will to say what's apparent and must be said going forth above all else. "So we'll say a few words for Dean when we arrive. Then, we'll bury him."

Sam flinches at those words, but slowly nods in concurrence. He then abruptly gets out of the car and slams the door, stomping with his characteristic long-legged strides towards the restrooms.

Bobby sighs his frustration, for Sam is much more repulsed by comfort in his grief than his brother, one year ago, even came close to being.

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	4. Chapter 4 Orbit Bound

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Two eyes, grey and tempestuous as a mid-spring storm, had watched from a little distance beyond the tree line as the classic black car grumbled into view, coming to an unsettled halt in one of the random spaces in a worn and oft used trek of the Rest Stop blacktop. An old and faded Chevelle rambling along not far behind, had parked nearby just afterwards, its bearded driver walking immediately over to the driver's side of the Impala. A brief conversation ensued. Soon thereafter, the black car's driver had made his way quickly up the little hill for the facilities.

Morning light, just beyond initial glow, now condescends to give way to haphazard sprays of the sunray at various points throughout the scenery. Yet she knows better than to bask in it.

Dawning days often being forgone catapults, orbit bound, into heights of new inspiration, only now make her grey eyes sparkle their faint flecks of silver: Two eyes intensely scanning over the green and gold landscape.

It's a tingling, or maybe a throb, she thinks. It's the sensation of a force moving and multiplying under the surface, which at any moment might explode into something radiating with light bright enough to shatter the air, or perhaps burst into enough confetti to cover the entire earth. It pulses behind her stormy grey eyes. Ah yes, it's a feeling not unlike… anticipation, she affirms, as she feels the whole of her body surge, quite eager to move forward within the flow of it all.

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All color and expression peaked, strained and overwrought, beneath heavy-lidded shell-shocked eyes and skin drawn tight, stares back the man Sam sees in the florescent lighted mirror of the Rest Stop men's room. He lifts his hand, breath stilling as he chances a touch to the smooth glass as if trying to assure himself the stranger looking back at him is truly his reflection. The hands touch in perfect unison, a light mist forming around his palm on the cool surface. Unable to reason why the pain his heart right now bears doesn't bleed out from everywhere within him, he reflects a moment on the many memories of the life that has lead him to this precise moment. He takes his hand away and takes the deep sighing breath he must have been holding in, before scrubbing hard at his hands and arms in the sink, trying not to see the crimson blush of the water as it disappears down the drain. He then splashes more, shockingly clean and cold, on his face.

Ah, no matter how dreadful life can get, there's always the potential of comfort, however remote that may be. Sam muses on the many implications of that thought as he takes several large throat-quenching sips from a water fountain in the common area of the little wooden building, then uses some loose change from his jeans' pocket to buy two coffees from the vending machines nearby.

He walks back out into the early morning sunlight on legs that feel like rubber. Set back from the highway, this place is almost pretty, he sees- with little patches of woods, a small trickling stream several yards to the left, and sundry picnic tables strewn about here and there in the shade. Still, for some odd reason, he momentarily feels his skin prickle. He takes a sip from one of the coffees and glances furtively around. The air's still hazy, morning dew not yet quite burnt up. At the edge of the gravel parking lot sits an old red Chrysler, the only vehicle here besides Bobby's car and the Impala. Bobby stands near the front panel of Dean's car, face pointed towards the gravel, shuffling his feet, rearranging tiny rocks with the toes of his shoes. He hasn't yet seen Sam emerge from the Rest Stop building.

Sam carefully turns when he hears movement in the grass just behind him. Not ten yards away stands a buck, its tall antlers almost winglike or ready to flap into motion, staring straight ahead with eyes as dark as night.

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	5. Chapter 5 So Many Nevermores

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It's not ending, Dean realizes- this tortured suspension, these vast enclosing clouds the color and scent of scorched metal. Reality splayed out against a sulfuric wind that screams through the dirty atmosphere here like there's no tomorrow, confirming all the deepest horrors of his mind.

Well, he admits, there actually _is_ no tomorrow to be had for himself anymore anyway, but still...

Pain everywhere intensifying, his throat burns acid in a hiccup as he bursts out with an unrestrained hoot in concession to his doomed soul to being so far lost, that indeed denying human timelines might be for him a great step forward in the progress of his coping. Well, if Hell's minions would deign to relentlessly exude all their extensive charms upon him, whilst leaving him still with so many nevermores to contend with, what's there further to lose in even requiting himself little weak fragments of reverie. Life and family gone from him now, there's only the memories anyway.

_The weapon feels heavy and powerful in his hands as he aims it at the old wooden fence topped with six darkly tinted Budweiser bottles. The crisp fall air whips windy wisps through his hair, its chill reaching right through his jacket, his small uncovered hands bright pink with the late fall's chafe. Over his shoulder and near his left ear, Daddy speaks quiet and low, telling him how to concentrate and prepare himself for the kick of the pistol._

_It's gotta be "Dad," though, and not "Daddy" anymore, Dean reminds himself. After all, he's a big kid now: seven years old in less than three months. It's Sammy's Daddy, and Dean's Dad. He squints one eye shut and focuses with the other hard on the "B" in "Budweiser" of the first bottle._

"_You've got to picture the bullet hitting that bottle, son- shattering it," Dad says, "and you should feel certain of its path before ever even pressing on that trigger."_

_Dean wants to turn his head, look into his father's eyes, if only to affirm that he's concentrating on the same target as well. He won't do that, though. He knows better than to falter._

_The "B" waves manifest right in front of his wide eyes, which won't in this moment see anything else. The wind picks up, almost as if in anticipation, and Dean feels his heartbeat pick up as well. His fingers, though bitterly cold, do not tremble. He pictures his bullet hitting the bottle, shattering it; he feels certain of the bullet's imminent path. He prepares himself for the kick, then presses on the trigger…_

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	6. Chapter 6 The Violent Turning

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_A shocked and painful yelp erupts from out beyond the tree line as the bullet fires wild from the fierce weapon Dean holds in his hands. It's a shot wide beyond range of the bottles still remaining neatly lined along the wooden fence before him. He's actually been blown backwards onto the ground, the pistol's kick having violently quaked everything, including the air now lightly breezing all about him._

_Dad's shadow a few feet away overhead shakes its head and swipes a frustrated hand across a brow. Dean shuts his eyes tightly, struggling to find something sturdy and defined on which to focus. The air still vibrates with all the repercussions of his failure, while no doubt the blood of a small dying animal somewhere a few dozen yards to the south sinks into the earth._

"No! I hit those targets – I hit every single one of them!" Dean screams into the malevolent atmosphere holding him in place– "And I won't ever forget it, demonic scum!"

_He tries to stare wide and with both eyes into the blue sunlit sky, but can only squint tight against a dazzle that almost overwhelms even spots where black-winged birds cast their arrow shapes haphazardly along the bright air, and where white puffy clouds ride past as if they have a destination._

_Dad's face appears less as shadow and further into focus as he leans down toward him, shading the overhead glare with that of his own._

_"You just can't focus, can you Dean!" Dean feels his barely open eyes start burning as if touched by hot pokers. They then start tearing like founts, completing his humiliation. His father just shakes his head in disgust as he backs away, every mood in that motion speaking of utter disappointment…_

Pain, like nothing he's ever endured, comes swiftly and patently- imbedding itself through every nerve of his body. It's distracting enough to drive his ghastly thoughts away, but doesn't. Dean's teeth clench together as he forces air in and out through a face drawn tout in agony.

_Dad's hand reaches for and then grips his own. Dean's then pulled upright to better feel the full irrefutable force of parental disappointment reign all down upon his skin._

"No! I hit those targets - I hit every one of them!"

_"No, you're not at all near ready, son. You might never be."_

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The wind picks up, in one moment blowing away all that was left of the morning's mist. Sam's eyes widen in surprise, or maybe even wonder, as they stare right straight into those of the giant-antlered buck. The whitetail's eyes are large dark orbs, staring wide right back into Sam's. Wild animals don't normally behave this way, Sam knows. After all, a large beast such as this would either be aggressive as all get up or fearful as hell of humans, especially human hunters of any kind. In any such confrontation, Sam knows better than to tangle with the likes of this strapping buck. He's not dim. Indeed, he's every bit the College Boy Dean had deemed him as these past few years on the road. However, there's nothing about this that speaks of confrontation. It's rather a tone emoting sighs of understanding…

_I know…_

Gold light wanders in through the leaves of trees around the wooded area surrounding the Rest Stop facilities building. There's a light warmth that suddenly arrives into the atmosphere unwarranted, and Sam takes slow expansive breaths, not wanting to halt what seems to him a surreal and possibly memorable moment. The buck just stands there before him, poised neither for conflict nor for flight. Behind him, Sam hears footsteps- likely Bobby's- though in what direction their tread leads he does not know. He cannot move, can in fact do nothing but stand there dumb and transfixed.

_I know your heart…_

Sam realizes this moment won't last, its fledgling intensity already dissipating with the freshness of the daybreak. There's a subtle change in the air around him, a light lift of the soft cloak shielding everything from the violent turning underneath. The buck's expression transforms from that of understanding to something almost plaintive and beseeching.

_I know your heart is breaking…_

There's the whisper of a sound from behind him, signifying the approach of someone else. Sam turns and looks down, straight into the smoky eyes of a small dark haired young woman. For a fraction of a moment she intently studies him, cocking her head to the side and pursing her lips.

"I was wondering if you had a light," she says, lifting a cigarette toward her lips.

Sam glances back, unsurprised to see no sign of the dark eyed buck anywhere. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his zippo and lights the smoke for the girl. His heart is beating fast and hard.

The girl's hair is in soft silky tendrils which elegantly frame her face. Her stance is relaxed, though her breath seems to be coming in short quick wisps. She momentarily gathers herself, and takes a strong steady drag from the cigarette, her eyes never leaving his face.

"You caught me by surprise," Sam tells her, lips curved in a slight smile. He's fairly impressed with himself for having recognized her.

"I did."

Sam's smile doesn't falter, even as his stomach twists and his chest constricts at the thought of getting back behind the wheel of the Impala and traveling the imminent mournful miles ahead.

Below, Bobby looks up toward him and starts walking in his direction, his eyes filled with questions.

"You know," she says, "you really shouldn't dawdle when time is of such essence, Sam."

"I know…" he answers, nodding to himself as he turns and starts walking toward Bobby. "Believe me, I know."

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	7. Chapter 7 Bioluminescence and Ash

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Several miles beyond the Rest Stop, still heading west somewhere near Monticello, Illinois, the sleek lines of the Impala had taken a sudden right turn, the sun's rising light reflecting blindly off her passenger side, as the car now speeds north into sights long since unseen from within her faintly tinted windows. The faded Chevelle had followed, looking just exactly like one of those fastidious and unrelenting clouds of dust that necessarily follow in the wake of a windstorm. Ruby rides low in the black leather bucket seat of her great big red boat of a car, and sees no alternative but to follow on the intrepid course.

Oh, yes. Indeed. Just let it course on through then, now. Let it. When anticipation's lines run without abandon in the audacity of such a detour, then there has to be an assurance that the force behind this livid whim is somehow self-aware. Something's certainly conspiring with all her wanton glee. Indeed, somewhere there's a confidence that all that's happening is exactly what must be.

From almost a mile back, she can tell. Raw human emotion, when emanating from a soul so potentially volatile that one can sense its energy from even miles and miles away, such grief must soon implode. Any temple can crumble after all, no matter how well built. Just some little time, however, before this red-hot sizzling intensity spills over and then cools, and hardens- leaving a charring residue which falls away to become crushed into millions of dusty dry fragments of ash. All fires burn out eventually, and then nothing's left to take its place but the incomprehensible haze of defeat and its cloudy pain-filled aftermath.

Immortal binds rarely exist anywhere in this universe; stark naked emotion usually blinds most souls to the real state of things; and members of families do not necessarily sustain eternal connection to each other.

There's nothing ahead but chaos, she can tell. After taking a heavy drag from her cigarette, she cracks open the window to flick the ashes out on the roadside. Ash is made up of so much burnt out residue, becoming veritably insubstantial as it's blown into the atmosphere. Ash is all Dean Winchester's going to be once this business is over with.

From almost a mile back, she can tell.

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Whispers of burgeoning leaves, breathless, new and fervent in the morning air, state their piece in sporadic gusts which sweep through this deciduous forest, on through the sliding upgrades of earth that here define the banks of the Vermillion River. The terrain in this place has always been rugged and wooded, though not wholly forsaken of anything civilized. Immediately beyond the moistened earth and woods there lie, along outstretches of dry prairie, the cultivated fields and hearth-warmed homesteads of central Illinois.

The Vermillion is a tributary, both lying in wait for something extraordinary and rolling along with mounting ripples of trepidation towards the future. The banks of the Vermillion cradle a lazily coursing stream that runs north- quite contrary to most of the rivers in North America- draining towns like Chatsworth, Long Point, and Pontiac of the elements and any such flow, the waste from the scattered humanity that scrapes a precarious living along its shores. Like all matter fluid, it travels and transforms. The Vermillion's unique direction eventually merges it headlong into the steady and unrelenting force of the Illinois River.

The old Route 66 actually passes through Pontiac, though it's not used as a fare way for travel anymore. Sam guides the Impala alongside it as the soybean and corn fields whip past on the approach into town. Soon the outer edges of Chautauqua Park can be seen, with its familiar quaint little bridges, playgrounds and pavilions. Further into town Sam can glimpse other little parks strewn here and there amongst the tree-lined blocks of pretty old houses. In the center of town is a town square with an old-fashioned looking courthouse- a four-cornered red brick building trimmed in white and gold. Stretching further the town's boundaries to the west are apartment complexes, shopping centers and motels reaching all the way to I-55.

As he passes through the center of town, Sam allows himself a small smile, remembering how Pontiac's claim to fame was that it was the setting for the movie "Grandview, USA"- how this cozy and homey atmosphere was just ideal for such a film. Streets flicker by, faintly familiar, verging on nostalgia, and he can still remember Pontiac's courthouse. Sitting smug as Livingston County's seat, it's the place where court has always been held in the area. It's the building that he and his brother had walked into within just days of Sam having received his first driver's license. It had been approximately three weeks after Dean had been slapped with his third speeding citation in as many months.

"_I just don't get it at all" Sam comments as they both run up the steps, almost 10 minutes late for court, "why would you let it happen once, let alone three times? Three traffic tickets, Dean! You know Dad's been thinking about giving you the Impala before your 21st birthday- I mean, why screw up now?" _

"_I did not let myself get those tickets, Sammy." Dean glances back, "They were thrust upon me." He pauses to adjust the waist on his dress pants and straighten his tie. He turns back to Sam, his lips pursing a sideways smirk, "It's all part of the conspiracy, my bro. When you grow up, you'll understand these things."_

"_Yeah," Sam says as he sprints up the steps behind him. "Whatever."_

Upon exiting his way out the other end of the town, Sam feels himself honing right toward their destination, as if drawn there like a magnet.

They'd been in a pretty copse of woods a few miles outside of the town's limits, Sam remembers, his mind still holding pictures of that velvety black night almost a decade ago. Late spring of his sophomore year, nearing the end of their three month stay in this place: when dad, having just wrapped up a werewolf hunt in the area, had taken both himself and his brother camping one dark Friday night under the new moon. Sam can still grasp the excitement his 16-year-old self had felt as he'd gathered the few remaining insects due for his biology class final project, come due the following Monday. A few of the jars used for gathering were lined up neatly in front of their tent, and the cardboard platform aligned with each of the already 50-odd pinned insects adorned handsomely with each scientific name tagged below, looked impressive indeed where Sam had carefully leant it against a tree trunk nearby.

They'd built a small campfire, and the three of them were roasting marshmallows, sitting Indian-style around the warm glow. They had a dozen or so bottles of beer and a fifth of Jack Daniels handy at their side. This was actually the very first time in his life Sam had ever drunk alcohol. His dad must have been in a highly benevolent state of mind that evening. For Sam remembers having twisted the cap off his third bottle of beer, then glancing over at John, who merely winked at him with a watchful eye, letting him know it's all okay, at least this once.

Meantime, his brother shifted restlessly, occasionally taking large swigs from the beer he gripped tightly in his hand, surreptitiously glaring sideways at a jar containing Sam's prized specimen- a praying mantis- which happened to be miraculously still moving, though rather sluggishly, bowing its head and folding its front forelegs in repetition per the signature motion for which it's named. Tenacious, even, despite having a pin stuck through its torso and a cotton ball saturated in rubbing alcohol locked within.

"_See this is what I'm talking about, boys" John declares before placing a thumb in his mouth to lick the remainder of his marshmallow, "ya have to plan your camping trip just right—check weather forecasts, pack exactly what you need- no more, no less- scope out just the right spot, and for godssake-," he stabs his index finger forward before pausing to take healthy sip of whisky, "you gotta always check the phasing of the moon!" _

A lightning bug suddenly at that moment flew right by in front of Dean, and he deftly snatched it out of the air with his free hand. He studied the flickering glow for a moment before setting his beer down. Timing the light just right, he twisted the insect around his left pinky finger, creating a glow ring. He then looked over at Sam with a smirk on his face, wagging his eyebrow …

"_So how do ya like that? - A ring of fire, um… fly!" He grins, "pretty awesome eh, Sammy??" _

"_It's called bioluminescence, Dean," Sam tells him, trying with little to no hope of success to put his brother in his place. "I already have one of those pinned to my board over there."_

"_Hah! Well mine's all glowing and yours is just burnt out and dead."_

""_That's a female lampyridae- and her torso lights up in answer to her mate's own flickering. Trust me, the light on yours is going to dim within a few short moments."_

"_Just how many more of them bugs do you really have to collect there, Sammy?" John asks with just a little hint of impatience in his voice. _

"_A few."_

_Dean gazes wistfully a moment longer at the rapidly dimming glow on his finger before looking back at Sam and frowning. "Lamper, what?"_

"_Lampyridae is the scientific name for lightning bug. I'm supposed to identify, classify and properly name each insect I collect – And I already have over the required 50 already completed on my board, so everything I do tonight is extra credit," he says proudly. _

_Dean slowly nods, then pursing his lips tightly together, flicks his eyes sideways to indicate the praying mantis in the jar._

"_Let that one go, then." _

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End file.
